Android's wide selection of smart phones available on many different carriers have earned it a big lead in the U.S. and second place in global shipments. The Linux distribution is closing in on global leader Nokia in total sales.

The Apple iPhone now leads the U.S. market for any single smart phone manufacturer. (Android is supported by multiple manufacturers) (Source: Bruce on Games)

Apple's
iPhone is continuing to grow in sales, but the gap between it in and
Google's Android in the United States is widening, as is Android's
lead over Research in Motion (RIM). That's the take home
message of a new research report from Canalys.

Canalys caught
a lot of attention as the first market research firm to report that
Android (formally the "Open Handset Alliance" (OHA), the
group of hardware providers that make smartphones powered by Google's
Android OS) had
passed Apple's iPhone in U.S. That report was later
confirmed
by the NPD Group.

The latest
Canalys report says that Apple now has "the lead in
U.S. smartphone market." That means that it is the single
best-selling smartphone on the market, whereas there are a number of
individual smartphones that makeup the OHA.

Overall Android
shipped 9.1 million units in Q3 2010, to take a commanding lead with
43.6 percent of the U.S. market. Apple shipped 5.5 million
units, with 26.2 percent of the market. RIM was a hair behind,
with 5.1 million units shipped and 24.2 percent of the
market.

Microsoft's phone woes continued as it awaits
the Windows
Phone 7, which will land on Monday, November 8. The company
only managed to ship 600,000 Windows Mobile handsets, dropping it to
a 3.0 percent market share.

Recent HP-acquisition
Palm was conspicuously absent from the list due to lack of sufficient
sales. Palm, like Microsoft, is betting on a new platform to
revive its near-death sales. Palm is preparing
webOS 2.0 and recently announced its first
new hardware since the Pre Plus. Several
other devices are also reportedly in the works.

Turning
to global market, Canalys reports that worldwide smartphone shipments
grew 95 percent from Q3 2009 with 80.9 million shipped units this
last quarter. Globally, Nokia leads with 33 percent of the
global market, Apple holds 17 percent of the market, and RIM holds a
15 percent market share. Android, grew 1,309 percent since Q3
2009. It shipped 1.4 million units globally in Q3 2009, and
20.0 million units globally in Q4 2009. The OS accounted for 25
percent of global smartphone shipments and now only trails
Nokia.

The Canalys global smartphone report, combined with
the recent
IDC report on the total global phone market (including
non-smartphones), paint a relatively complete picture when it comes
to global sales.

Based on recent research into Apple's
extreme profitability, it's evident that the Cupertino
corporation doesn't need to outsell Google's platform to make
boatloads of money. It's equally evident that Android handsets
are grossly outselling Apple's iPhone, even as the iPhone edges ahead
of veteran player RIM. Likewise RIM can take comfort in that it
posted a large increase in volume -- even if it did fall behind Apple
and Android. And Nokia can take comfort in that it's still
posting small growth and holding steady in market share. Thus
there's a bit of good news for everybody in this report -- except
perhaps Microsoft and Palm.

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Global Foundries manufactured the CPU's didnt design them, and Apple slightly modified what was already created which is called the cortex A8 and paired with a PowerVR SGX 535 graphics processor, again not designed by Apple...

Apple A4 is based on the ARM processor architecture.[5] The first version released runs at 1 GHz and contains a Cortex-A8 CPU core paired with a PowerVR SGX 535 graphics processor, built on Samsung's 45 nm processThe Cortex-A8 core used in the A4 is thought to use performance enhancements developed by chip designer Intrinsity (which was subsequently acquired by Apple)[10] in collaboration with Samsung.[11] The resulting core, dubbed "Hummingbird", is able to run at far higher clock rates than other implementations while remaining fully compatible with the Cortex-A8 design provided by ARM.[12] Other performance improvements include additional L2 cache. The same Cortex-A8 CPU core used in the A4 is also used in Samsung's S5PC110A01 SoC

I assume that you've read the quote that you posted from wikipedia (if you copy and paste, you should at least cite the source).

If you re-read your quote, you will notice that the CPU contains performance enhancements that are developed by apple (a company that apple bought, which makes it apple now). Therefore, unless Apple decides to sell the CPU in its stores or sells it to other resellers, you can't buy it.

Again, you claimed that you can go to a store like Newegg (or something similar) and purchase all parts that Apple uses to create their hardware. I will ask you again to show me a link to where I could purchase a new A4 processor, with warranty and all, so that I could build my own iPhone.

quote: you will notice that the CPU contains performance enhancements that are developed by apple (a company that apple bought, which makes it apple now).

yes it would be Apple now, but since you want to talk about citing, lets talk about paraphrasing, you wrote

quote: contains performance enhancements that are developed by apple

where in reality says...

quote: is thought to use performance enhancements developed by chip designer Intrinsity

and since its

quote: in collaboration with Samsung

and used in the

quote: The same Cortex-A8 CPU core used in the A4 is also used in Samsung's S5PC110A01 SoC

doesnt mean apple solely designed it, it means they went to samsung and asked if they could make a couple modifications for it.

quote: Again, you claimed that you can go to a store like Newegg (or something similar) and purchase all parts that Apple uses to create their hardware. I will ask you again to show me a link to where I could purchase a new A4 processor, with warranty and all, so that I could build my own iPhone.

i refered to apple not specifically iphone, and if you were a manufacturer, you'd be able to purchase samsungs cortex a8 and build your own phone, without apples instructions (which would be software).

quote: Your wikipedia quote only proves the point I was making.

Maybe in your eyes, apple buys components from companies then writes its own set of instructions, and tell the company to make a couple of enhancements (one that was used)

quote: additional L2 cache

or changing ram amounts

quote: two low-power 128 MB DDR SDRAM chips for a total of 256MB RAM. For the iPhone 4 there are two chips of 256 MB for a total of 512 MB.

which you would have to write instructions for (software), is a far cry from creating a whole arcitecture (which your statement makes it seem). Do you need a team of engineers to help you change the RAM in your PC, and possibly redesign it NO

again they didnt design the A4 they slightly modified the cortex A8, which they didnt create.

and to make you happy from wikipedia

As of 2007, about 98 percent of the more than one billion mobile phones sold each year use at least one ARM processor.[3] As of 2009, ARM processors account for approximately 90% of all embedded 32-bit RISC processors. ARM processors are used extensively in consumer electronics, including PDAs, mobile phones, digital media and music players, hand-held game consoles, calculators and computer peripherals such as hard drives and routers.

quote: I really don’t understand what the big deal is about the A4. ARM designed the chip, Apple customized it, and Samsung built it. How is that any different from any other phone or device manufacturer? The A4 variant (an unfortunate name considering the A* naming convention in ARM chips) is just an A8-based chip with a setup specific to the iPhone or iPad’s PCB layout and processing needs. Apple doesn’t have fairy dust to sprinkle on it to make it anything more than that.

Do you even know what ARM is? It is an architecture. You treat it like it is some sort of a specific processor. ARM is an instruction set (again, architecture), no different than the x86. Saying that the processor that Apple uses in their iPhone is basically the same processor that is used in every other phone is like saying that the Core i7 from Intel is exactly the same as the AMD Phenom, because they use the same instruction set architecture.

ARM allows others to license their architecture, and make their own custom chips. That is exactly why there are so many different ARM chips - it allows a common architecture, yet you can build your OWN processor for your needs (you can buy processors directly from ARM I think, but that is not what Apple did with the A4). There are ARM chips in calculators, appliances, phones, computers, etc. These are not "basically the same chip", even though they share the ARM architecture.

Samsung is simply a manufacturer of the processor, because Apple doesn't have their own foundries to do that sort of stuff. However, they most certainly customized it and they own the rights to those customizations (patents), which makes the A4 Apple's.

You seem to have a massive misunderstanding of what ARM/Apple provides if you think that customizing a processor is the same thing as adding more RAM to a PC (and yes, even something as small as adding L2 cache means you must physically alter the processor to be able to address that memory - it is not "software").

At first, you stated that you can go to Newegg and buy the parts that Apple uses to build their hardware. Next you stated that you can hire a manufacturer to create a factory to produce the chips for you, and you act like the two are the same thing.